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Laurel resident Sandra Varela, 39, arrived at the Laurel Advocacy and Referral Service with one goal — to get bread so her 13-year-old daughter, Samaria, could make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for school the next day.

Varela, who has three other children — Jaime, 18; Jarrell, 22; and Darnell, 23 — and has been unemployed since 2006, was one of about 40 people from in and around Laurel who came out for LARS's weekly bread delivery. She said during her visit Dec. 13 that LARS has helped ease the burden on her family while she studies to become a medical assistant and looks for a job.

"It's so hard when I hear them crying about bread, and I tell them, ‘Wait until Monday,'" Varela said. "It's been rough, but this is a good organization, and the people are caring, and they make sure you're covered."

Yet LARS Executive Director Nancy Graham is increasingly worried about her organization's ability to provide that coverage, due to the growing number she has seen this year.

The nation's unemployment rate hit 9.8 percent in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Graham believes that number is "directly reflected in what's happening at LARS."

Graham said Nov. 29 was LARS's busiest day since its founding in 1987.

"Ninety-eight people came through the doors seeking our services that day," Graham said. "Before this recession, that number would have been about 40."

LARS, which provides eviction prevention, utility assistance, prescriptions, transportation, clothing and food services, served 2,100 people this year, up from 1,570 last year.

Graham said the organization is especially in need of food.

Two commercial-size refrigerators that in past years overflowed with dozens of donated frozen and chilled items are now completely empty, and rows of shelves once stacked literally from floor to ceiling with canned and boxed foods are now only sparsely filled, Graham said.

"We usually have 10 times as much food during this time of year, at least," she said. "And what's happening in the economy has definitely had an impact on what's happening in our pantry."

The story is similar at other nearby organizations.

Pastor Daniel Hamlin's Greenbelt Community Church works closely with Berwyn's Help By Phone food pantry, which Hamlin said "is struggling to keep food on the shelf."

"It just goes out as fast as it comes in," he said.

Every year, Hamlin's church donates 600 bags of groceries to the pantry to provide two weeks' worth of food to families in need. That number is up from around 400 bags just two years ago.

"We're seeing more people who are unemployed or underemployed," Hamlin said. "Some are minimum-wage earners who have fallen behind on rent and are one or two paychecks away from being homeless."

"We have to struggle just to keep up," he said.

Keeping up has also been a struggle for First Baptist Church of Savage. Resources in its Bread of Life Food Pantry were no match for the sharp increase in demand it experienced this year, so the pantry was forced to limit its service area to a five-mile radius around the church starting this past summer, said secretary Linda Christner. Previously, the pantry served patrons from as far away as Baltimore.

At Beltsville Seventh-Day Adventist Church, increased need has corresponded with decreased donations. The church's annual fall food drive in November yielded the lowest number of food items in the event's decade-long history, said pastor Kermit Netteburg.

Last year the church collected more than 5,000 food items, Netteburg said. This year he estimated donations may have dipped as low as 3,500.

"Our estimate is that it has to do with tougher economic times," he said.

At LARS, Graham said for the most part donors "have been fabulous and consistent," but that it's the community's need that has changed.

She said she hopes monetary donations brought in from this year's appeal letters — sent out to 1,500 people on LARS's mailing list on Nov. 26 — will help the organization recover from the 30 percent deficit increase it saw this year so that it doesn't have to cut services.

"We just have to wait and see and hope for the best," she said.

cokparanta@gazette.net